Capri 3.5 (Season Three: Delgato Family: Capri)

10. Capella

capella

. . .

Rah and Giovanna had left their party, so the DJ went crazy. We had been listening to old school music most of the night, so when they finally left their party, Lennox told the DJ to go crazy. When “Touch It Or Not” by Cam’ron came on, we all damn near broke our necks going crazy.

“New York in fucking Monaco!” the DJ yelled into the mic.

Aimee’s sexy ass was wearing this skintight red spaghetti strap dress that hugged all her fucking curves that Rory had given her. Her hair was curled but pinned up in some messy updo. All night I was watching her as she and Capri danced together, or when she went to the bar.

I played it cool, not wanting to be all up in her space. Even though she was my wife, and I should have had her by me all night. I peeped when a few niggas was looking at her, and she didn’t pay them any attention.

When “I’ll Be Missing You” came on, she scanned the entire room until she found me and made her way to me. She pulled me into her arms, knowing that song made me emotional.

“Stand back and catch my amazing graces,” Aimee rapped with Skyler as they both were going crazy in the middle of the floor.

Capri joined them as they all spit bars to each other while Meer watched his wife. I couldn’t even front, I was looking at Aimee the same way as she was having fun. This was the Aimee I fucking missed.

“For the ladies now!” the DJ yelled and put on “I Wanna Be Your Lady” by Dipset.

Every woman in this party walked over to their man and started dancing and singing on them. Including my aunt and Skyler, who walked over to Core and was singing to him. With the way Meer held onto Capri, I was sure he wanted to pull her into his skin.

Aimee came over and danced. “I need you.”

“Need me?” I rapped back to her.

She laughed as we danced on the floor and I held her close to me, kissing her cheek. Her body still reacted the same as it always did whenever I touched her. She turned around, and pushed her ass onto me, and my shit grew in seconds.

It had been a minute since I been in Aimee, and I missed my fucking baby more than anything. I didn’t know how shit was going to be when we got here, and I was secretly praying we had time to actually sit and talk.

She had been wanting to talk and I kept pushing her off. Aimee wasn’t just my baby mother or my girlfriend, she was my fucking wife. It was easier to move like we were single and not married because no one knew except us and Skyler.

As I held her around the waist, I thought about how I had fucked up royally by sliding with Shante. My father was right to call me a fucking cornball because that shit was corny. Because I wanted to hurt my wife, I went and did the exact thing that she fucking feared. Hurting her because I was so caught up in my feelings.

Blair walked by in Quasim’s big ass shoes while he held her heels in his hand and walked in his socks. “I’m out, Baby Capp.” He dapped me up.

“With Blair? Check you the fuck out.”

“Chill out, we sharing a suite… two bedrooms. She has her own.” He felt the need to tell me, and knowing Sim, they both would sleep in their own bedrooms.

I didn’t care as long as he was having fun and enjoying his life. “See you in the morning.”

Aimee had her own room because Morgan didn’t want her anywhere near the villa. He thought he would have Capri to himself and ended up surprised when Skyler popped up with her.

“Ain’t two separate rooms… me and Suga taking one,” Meer called behind his brother, while carrying Capri.

“Night, Pri.” I laughed.

She yawned. “Night you two… behave yourselves. Act like husband and wife,” she raised her brow as Meer followed behind his brother and Blair.

Aimee looked away. “It slipped out.”

“How the fuck does that slip out, Aim?” I took her hand in mine, as we walked out the ballroom.

“We were talking about something and then it slipped.” We both watched Core and Skyler. He was walking behind her, as they headed to the elevator on the other side of the lobby.

“Them two?”

She smiled as she watched the both of them. “I think they’re cute together.” Core and Skyler weren’t my concern as we stepped onto the elevator. “What floor are you staying on?” she asked, after she had already pressed her floor.

“Stop fucking with me, Aimee.”

She folded her arms. “We had fun tonight, but that doesn’t mean you get to have me here, and then ignore me once we’re back home.”

I cornered her and stared down at her. “Who said I would ignore you when we’re back home, Aim?”

I kissed her neck, as she moaned and tried to get away, but her body knew she wanted me. “Capella, you haven’t wanted to talk about anything… I know how this…. go…goes,” she whimpered as I sucked on her neck.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I ignored it as Aimee kissed me back, my heart feeling like it was going to leap out my chest. I fucking loved Aimee, despite all the shit we had been going through.

I understood our shit wasn’t perfect and we needed to fucking grow up and figure shit out, but I couldn’t help being in love with her. I made a promise that I would always be there for her, and I wanted to keep it, never breaking it.

“I’m sorry, baby… sorry for putting my hands on you, Aim… I feel like shit for doing that to you… you know I would never hurt you, Aimee,” I whispered in her ear, as we both ignored the older couple that got onto the elevator with us.

She stared into my eyes, looking for any reason to believe me. Aimee wanted to believe me, and I could tell from the way she pushed her lips against mine, and then pulled away. “Cappella, I know about you and Shante.”

At this point, we had rode the elevator past her floor, and back down to the ground floor. My heart wanted to leap out my chest and run out the fucking elevator doors as soon as it opened. Aimee looked at me. “What you mean?”

“Don’t lie to me… I’m working real hard on being truthful and not keeping things from the people I love.” She walked over and pressed the elevator button.

“I fucked her, Aim… I was drunk and made a bad call.”

She looked down at her feet and then back up at me. The elevator stopped at her floor, and she got off and walked down to her room. I trailed behind her, fucked up and wondering how the fuck she knew.

I watched as she let us into her room, and she closed the door behind us, leaning on it while I took a seat by the table. “How many times, Capella?”

It was more than one time, and at this point I couldn’t keep count of how many times I fucked Shante. All I knew is that whenever I called, she was always available and wanted me. “A few times… I wasn’t counting, Aim.”

“Landon took me to get my abortion,” she admitted, and folded her arms. “I asked him because I knew he would keep my secret. We’re friends, and I know it makes you uncomfortable which is why I distanced myself from him because I love you… I want you. I don’t want Landon, and he knows that.”

“Why would you abort my baby and then have the next nigga take you to get rid of it. I wasn’t worth a conversation, baby?”

She took a deep breath and looked up. “You were worth a conversation and I should have. If I could take all of this back, I would have talked to you and got you to understand my thought process.”

“I wanna understand it, Aimee… let me in.”

She walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. “Rory has a lot going on, and I’m trying to navigate how to be the mother he needs me to be. Having another baby would have taken the time he needs away. It would have pulled me under, Capella.”

“You didn’t think that you could have told me that? Aim, you acting like I don’t listen to you or haven’t been asking you to open up to me.”

She looked at me. “Do you remember when you were talking to your grandmother. She mentioned something about Rory would be a good big brother because of how he was playing gentle with Cooper?”

“Yeah.”

I remembered the conversation because I was so excited to talk to my grandmother about it. Now that I thought about her expression, she wasn’t all that thrilled when she heard me say it. Aimee actually looked sick when I mentioned wanting to try for a daughter next.

“You looked her dead in the eyes and said you were working on a little girl next. Like I didn’t even have a say in it, and that we were just going to have a second child. Capella, every time I talk about getting back on birth control you threw a fit, and you never like to use condoms… makes me wonder if you even used them with Shante.”

Damn.

“I wrapped my shit up every time, Aim… I swear.”

“I get I told you that we needed a break, and that was on me. I fucked up by not communicating and not telling you what was going on. I’m not making excuses, but every time something happens, I get so fucking scared. In that moment, my fear was stronger than my faith in you, and it shouldn’t have been. I really trusted that you wouldn’t fuck someone else because I wasn’t thinking that way.”

I hung my head and looked down at my loafers. “I fucked up, Aim.”

“Yeah. I guess, we both did.”

I looked up at her, as she loosened the strap on her heels. “Where we go from here, Aim? This not just us being boyfriend and girlfriend. We have a son, and we’re married now… I didn’t get married to get divorced.”

She looked up at me as tears fell from her eyes. “Do you think I want that? Capella, we’re really fucked up and Rory deserves better. We can’t keep bouncing him to the family whenever we’re going through shit. I can’t continue to pretend that I’m fine because the truth is that I’m not. I don’t even know what fine really is. I haven’t been fine before I had Rory and before I met you.” She looked down. “Core got me a therapist.”

“You talked to my uncle about this?”

“Yes… he’s like my best friend. Corleon may be your uncle, but he’s a good friend and listens to me without judgment. The man is so damn cool and calm that you feel comfortable talking to him… you should try it.”

I couldn’t believe that she told my uncle about everything she was going through. As if I hadn’t been here wanting to know, too. “He knew about the abortion?”

“No. I didn’t want to put him in that position. He helped me see a lot of things, and I’m going to start going to therapy. Honey, you should start going, too. Your aunt, then your mother all while becoming a father, and getting to know your father. Capella, that shit is a lot, and I know you wear that shit on your back.”

She wasn’t wrong. My mother may have not been shit, but coping with her death had been hard. I felt stupid for even mourning her along with my aunt and tried to stop every time I got sad when I thought about her.

Kendra was selfish and only thought about what she wanted. She didn’t give a fuck about anybody else, or what they thought about her.

She was my mom though.

All I had known as a mother, alongside my aunt. She was inconsistent and did her own thing, but she was a constant fixture in my life, and now she was gone. It was hard going over to visit Jasmine and seeing Kendra and my aunt’s picture. Part of me started to tell myself that they were still here, and I just couldn’t see them.

Anything to keep myself from thinking about them and missing them. I know my pops was heavy on the whole show your feelings, but I couldn’t help but feel weak going to him about it. This was the same woman that lied to him, kept me away, and spent his money while not being faithful to him.

He didn’t seem that fucked up by her death, other than when we first found out. His life moved on while mine felt like it was stuck in the past. I was mentally in that basement when I discovered it was my mother rotting away down there.

My heart was in that hospital bed when he told me my aunt hadn’t made it. The funeral where we all spoke on her, and the kind of mother, aunt, and woman she had been. My mind was in all those places, and it was hard staying positive when all I felt was gloom.

I abandoned the chair and opened the mini bar, grabbing mini bottles of french vodkas. “Not going to help you either… drinking isn’t going to solve how you feel,” Aimee whispered.

“The fuck you trying to say?”

“When you choked me in the hospital, I could smell the liquor on your breath… in Barbados, you were drunk threatening me. Capella, I’m not saying you have a drinking problem, but when life gets rough for you, you tend to drink and that’s not good for your condition. Have you been taking your medicine?”

I tossed the bottles onto the dresser and sat back down on the chair, ignoring her question about my medicine because I hadn’t refilled that shit once. Alaia asked me once, and I lied and told her I was picking them up that day. “Where we go from here?”

“I don’t know… do you love her?”

“Who Shante?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck no… she cool people, but I don’t love her ass. We were just fucking, Aim.”

She winced when I said those words. “You know I could have fucked Landon… could have had him pick me up, take me to his place and allowed him to fuck me all over his penthouse. I could have gotten even when she sent me pictures to my phone, but I refused to even get back at you… for what? After getting my back blown out, because I know Landon could blow a back out, I would have left his house and felt lower because he wasn’t you.”

The way she went on about this nigga fucking the shit out of her had me fucking jealous. I was becoming heated even thinking of someone else having Aimee. I didn’t like that shit, and could see why she felt how she did, because I had given myself to another chick.

“What pic—” She held her hand up.

“Don’t get it twisted, Capella. I can call Landon and fuck him while having him hack into your phone to give you a live fucking stream… see how I could do petty shit, too? If you want to fix this, then we need to fix this. It starts with the ball rolling into your court first. I could believe just fucking if she hadn’t sent me a picture of you laying on her chest… something you only do with me. You love to be held, Capella, and you allowed her to hold you.”

I dropped my head because Shante was going to be a fucking thorn in my side with her shit. When we went back to her crib, before even sticking my dick inside of her, I asked her was she good. That she understood that we were just fucking, and I wasn’t in the mental space to even decide on what I wanted in that moment.

I probably should have made sure she truly understood, because now I was positive she was going to fuck around and start shit now that she knew I moved back into the lake house. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Pops told me our house is going through inspections and then we’re off to closing, Capella. We need to figure out what the fuck we want.”

I switched seats, sitting next to her and started kissing on her neck. “I want my family, Aim… I fucked up, and I want my family back.”

“Prove it to me,” she removed herself from me, as her legs started to shake, knowing she wanted me to continue.

“What I got to do? You want a new truck? I’ll take you shopping… what do you want… it’s yours.”

“Do therapy with me… if you really want your family, like I do, then you’ll go to therapy. Ask your uncle, he seems to know a lot. Think he said he used to fuck the one that he referred me to.”

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah… your uncle is interesting.”

“Come here, Aim.”

She remained on her feet. “You can sleep in here, but we’re not having sex. If your family is what you want, I don’t need to tell you what to do. I know what I have to do, and as a grown ass man, you should know, too. I’ve only met her a few times, but the fact that you started fucking her and think you ‘bout to fuck me… Capella, you better use your hand.”

I laughed. “Word? We on it like that, Aimee?”

“Yep.”

I dropped my pants and stood in my briefs, and she licked her lips while staring at my bulge in my briefs. “What about now?”

“We’re not having sex, Capella. You may be saying you want your family now, but I need to trust that you mean that without fucking me. If you want us as much as you say you do, you know what to do.”

“So, you gonna be fucking other niggas?”

“Capella?”

“What up, Aim?”

Aimee folded her arms. “Shut the fuck up. Unlike you, I took my vows seriously and didn’t think about fucking anybody. Sex wasn’t even on my mind. I’m going to shower… with the door locked.” She turned to head into the bathroom, and I tossed myself back on the bed.

I wanted her more than she fucking knew in this moment. Aimee standing up to me, telling me what it was gonna be, had me fucking hard as a rock. My phone buzzed in my pocket again, and I leaned up, fishing in my pockets for my phone.

Shante’s name came up on my damn screen, and I picked my pants up and went out on the balcony. “What’s up, Shante?”

“You out the country with her, Capella?”

I inwardly groaned. “With who?”

“Aimee… are you with her right now?”

I looked at my phone. “What time is it there?”

It was well after midnight here and she was on my phone asking questions that wasn’t her fucking business. “Don’t fucking ask me what time it is, Capella… are you with her,” she slurred.

“We both knew what this shit was when we started it, Shante. Why you being all fucking weird like I promised you forever.”

“Shit Shante, this my shit…. give this to another nigga, and I’ll fuck you up.” I listened to my own voice on the other end of the phone.

“Bitch, you were fucking recording me?”

“Yes, Capella… It’s all yours baby… me and you forever, right?” Another recording of Shante’s voice played.

“Yeah, Aim… forever,” I continued to listen to me fucking clearly drunk, because I was slurring and called her ass Aimee.

“No more, Aim, baby… only me and you… ahhh, harder, baby… harder,” I contemplated jumping over this fucking railing to my death after hearing this bitch record me.

“Why the fuck would you fucking record me?”

“Just in case you fucking act like what I said wasn’t the truth… I’ll send her the fucking recordings if you want.”

“Like the pictures you fucking sent her?”

“Oh, so you on speaking terms with her?” I paced the damn balcony, my dick deflated because she ruined that for me.

“Shante don’t make me show you that other side. Stop fucking playing with me and leave Aimee the fuck alone… she’s my fucking wife.”

“Oh, the same wife you only married because you felt bad that she didn’t have family… poor little orphan ass bitch.”

“Bitch, I ain’t never told you that shit.”

She laughed. “You didn’t have to… sounds like the only reason you married her ass. She know about what her father-in-law did to her brother and mother?”

My heart dropped.

I held the phone to my lips as I looked out at the view in front of me. “Bitch, I promise fucking with Cappadonna isn’t a fucking demon you wanna wake up.”

“Relax, I would never go to the cops. Just asking if she knows… should I inform her?” she laughed and ended the call, and I felt like I was about to shit my pants.

I rushed into the room; my pants still unbuckled as Aimee came out the bathroom to grab her small bag filled with all her face care. “Are you alright, Capella?”

“Ye…yeah… I’m good. I need my father though… wait up for me.”

“Um, okay,” she replied as I rushed out the room and headed to the other side of the hotel to my uncle and father’s suite. I beat on the door until Capone opened the door, looking at me like I was crazy.

“A lot of your actions can be chalked up to crack, Capella… you doing that shit? Tell me… I’ll take you to rehab after I beat the crack out you.”

“Where’s my father? I need to talk to him… shit urgent.”

He looked at his phone. “Gorgeous, go ahead and save that for me when I come home… niggas love interrupting my private time with my damn wife.”

“Winston, I was going to prop this phone up so you can watch this animal planet documentary… I wasn’t going to strip tease for you… I love you, Winnie. Call me in the morning.”

“Love you, Daddy!” CeeCee said, as she ended the call.

“Love y’all, too.”

After he finished the call, he opened the door further and let me in. I was pretty sure I was having a heart attack. “Your pops went to bed… what happened?”

I rushed toward his side of the suite and slowly opened his room door, and it was pitch black. “What do you want, Capella?”

I clicked the lights on, and he wasn’t in his bed. “Where the fuck are you?” I looked around, like he was the wizard, and I was in Oz. “Closet,” Capone replied.

I walked over toward the walk-in closet, and he was on the floor with his blankets, and one of his arms behind his head. “Why the fuck are you in here?”

“Capella, what the fuck do you want? I’m trying to fucking sleep,” he barked, pissed that I had twenty-one questions before I told him why I busted into their suite at this time. Capone left us, and I stood in the doorway.

“I fucked Shante, Pops.”

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“The fuck you want me to say? You’re a grown ass man and make your own decisions… I didn’t raise you, remember.”

“Pops, I didn’t mean?—”

“Don’t need to get into that right now… why is telling me who you fuck relevant at this hour?”

“She mentioned something about Ace and if Aimee knows that you killed him… she was there?”

He laughed. “Now you gotta kill your side bitch… crazy shit.”

“The fuck?”

“Close my door… we’ll talk in the morning. I don’t got the energy for this shit.”

I started to close the door and then paused. “You alright, though?”

“As good as a nigga that had a bullet in his shoulder gonna be… let me sleep.”

“Love you, Pops.”

“Love you more than you even know.”

I smiled and closed the door to the closet, and then to his room, before going to find my uncle. He was sitting out on the balcony eating a cookie. “Didn’t Erin ban you from those?”

“What she don’t know ain’t gonna kill her, and nah I’m not sharing.”

“Wasn’t even going to ask.” I took a seat beside him.

We both looked out at the view in front of us, while allowing silence to surround us. Well, silence and Capone’s constant damn chewing. “He sleeps in the closet because it reminds him of prison… big rooms overwhelm him, and without Alaia here, that shit fucks with him.”

“Damn, I didn’t know.”

“Me either. Remember when we took that trip with your grandfather? I was looking everywhere for this nigga, and he was in the closet sleep. I grabbed my fucking blanket and joined his ass, and when he finally woke up, he told me why, and it fucked me up. There’s a lot of shit that I may never understand because he sacrificed his life for me. I could have been in there for fifteen years of my life. He carries this shit like it’s nothing because that’s always been Capp. Reason why I take the blame for Tasha, and if push comes to shove, I will do that time.”

“You held shit down though, Capo. Stop putting pressure on yourself and beating yourself up about the decisions he made.”

“Yeah, stop doing that shit, Capo.” We both looked at the doorway, and my father was standing there. He came out on the balcony, and sat on the other end, looking out at the same view we had gotten lost in moments before. “I was fucking wrong to place the blame on you. Nigga, you held this down… did this shit while battling your disease. How the fuck could you know some sick bitch would get that bitch out of prison?” He stood up, held his hand out, and Capone stood up.

They embraced each other. “Fucking love you, Capp… don’t know what the fuck I would do if I lost you again.”

My father kissed his twin’s head. “You don’t got to worry about that shit. We ending that shit here, and back home to our wives.”

“Me and Aimee got married,” I nonchalantly replied, and they both looked at me. Capone shook his head, scooped up his cookies and plopped back down on the couch.

“Before or after you fucked Shante?”

“Before.”

He shook his head. “Ain’t my place to tell you how to live your life… you a grown man.”

I leaned up. “It is your fucking place. I don’t have no other parent,” I replied.

I watched as my father leaned up and looked me in the eyes. “Since you want a parent now… you fucked up. I try not to involve myself in you and Aimee’s back and forth because the shit gives me a headache. Emotions were high at the hospital, but putting your hands on her was a big fucking no, Capella. I saw her fucking neck and she made excuses for you… fucking excuses for you!”

I hung my head because I knew I fucked up. That moment in the hospital, I fucking lost my shit and saw red. That wasn’t Aimee on the bed, she was my enemy, and all I wanted to do was choke the fuck out of her.

“Don’t forget that shit in Barbados… you got a fucking hand problem, and the next time you exercise that on a woman, I’m gonna have a fucking hand problem.” Capone raised up and looked at me.

My pops dropped his head then looked up at me. “I’m not innocent and I have done shit that I had to and have answered for. Me and Kendra wasn’t perfect, and we had our shit. I can tell you I ain’t never choked her out, even when I wanted to. How the fuck you put your hands on someone you love, someone you promised you wouldn’t hurt? It’s my fault ‘cause I let that shit slide in Barbados when you put your hands on her neck. I should have tapped yo’ fucking jaw right then and there.”

I could see how pissed and bothered he was, as he stared at me like he didn’t recognize me. “I…I snapped.”

“I…I snapped,” he mocked me. “Snap again and I can promise I’m gonna show you the Capo you first met,” my uncle snarled.

I put my head in my hands and listened to both my uncle and father. “I fucked up… I was fucked up about the abortion and the Rory shit.”

“Nobody is saying that she’s right. Aimee know she fucked up and she still wants you. You put your fucking hands on her, and she still wants you. Making fucking excuses for your grown ass. You have a little fucking sister… you want her fucking with a nigga like that?”

“Nah,” my reply was muffled because tears fell down my face as I listened to my father. The way he spoke, it sounded like this had been something he wanted to say for a while.

“I told you don’t do no corny shit, and you went and fucked Shante. What got me fucked up is you both went and got secretly married like that was fucking smart. The fuck you thought marriage was gonna do?”

“Felt like I needed to make an honest woman out of her.”

I felt a slap in the back of my head and turned to look at my uncle. “Felt like making an honest woman out of her by going out there and being dishonest? First sign of trouble in your marriage and you turn to some pussy.”

“Capo, stop fronting like you wasn’t getting side pussy and shit while out there handling business.”

“It ain’t side pussy when you’re not fucking married. The minute I made a commitment to Erin, before even sliding that ring on her finger and giving her my last name, I ain’t slid in nothing. My commitment and vows to my wife were fucking real. We go through shit like everybody else, and I ain’t never thought of fucking sliding with somebody else. My wife stresses me the fuck out sometimes, have me pacing in my fucking office talking to Cooper and shit. Never have I thought about going to find solace in another bitch.”

“Married Alaia and she already knew what it was… I’d fucking hurt myself before hurting her. She can go to sleep at night knowing no other bitch can come to her as a fucking woman. Aimee can’t do that, can she?”

“I fucked up… shouldn’t have even went to the bar knowing where it could lead to. We got drunk and high and shit went there.”

“Oh, so it happened once?” my father asked, and in his tone, I could tell he already knew the answer to the question. “Exactly… you was sliding up in her often… so often that now she trying to make fucking problems.”

“I’m gonna fix all this shit… I got us into this shit, so I’m gonna fix it. Aim already said we can go to therapy and fix our marriage.”

“Fuck all that therapy shit for your marriage. Go to therapy for you and only you. She needs to do the same, and you both need space from each other. Let her go until you get your shit together, Capella. Don’t put this burden on her… she already needs to heal herself, don’t make her try and heal you, too.”

I stared up into his eyes. “What you mean? You want me to just say fuck my marriage?”

My father sighed. “You shouldn’t have went and got married in the first place. The both of you decided that without even considering all you were already going through. You were her husband, and she didn’t come to you when she found out she was pregnant again.”

“Or when son-son was blackmailing her,” Capone added.

“Exactly. That tells you everything you need to know about how ready you both were. Alaia calls me when she drops her damn ring down the drain. My wife knows I’m gonna handle her problems, big or small. Aimee didn’t extend that to you because she didn’t trust or know if you could, and that’s all the reason you need.”

“The fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Start taking care of you… you been taking your medicine?” Capone paused. “Don’t sit in my face and lie to me.”

“I don’t like taking all that fucking shit,” I admitted.

“Nigga, do you think I enjoy it? I used to do the same shit, so busy trying to handle business that I neglected myself. I look at my kids sleeping and my wife and know I can’t let this disease take me the fuck outta here. You have a family to live for, Kid.”

“He grown, Capo… can’t raise him.” My father leaned back on the couch and watched me. “I ain’t trying to overstep and tell you what to do, even if I’m your father.”

“You’re all I have when it comes to a parent, Pops. I get fucked up sometimes, and I say shit to deflect how I’m feeling… Pops, I fucking need you… deadass.” Tears fell down my face as I looked up at him.

He looked away. “Come ‘ere.”

Capone shoved me over there. “Go over to your father… ‘cause Jaiden, CJ, or Cooper said some shit like that to me… shit would have crushed me. I don’t care if it was true… you don’t hurt your family. I don’t care how hurt you are… we done enough of that shit with Pri.”

I walked over toward my father, and plopped down beside him. He grabbed me with his free arm and pulled me onto him, kissing my head. “Don’t ever doubt that I fucking love you or Aimee… I took a fucking bullet for her. I would take a bullet for anyone in this fucking family, Capella. I didn’t raise you and that’s one of the biggest regrets in my life and it fucks me up, but I’m damn sure trying to lead you to be a good father, and man.” He sniffled, and I looked up and saw he was crying too. “Do what you have to do to get your shit right, but don’t drag Aimee through hell and back to prove that she loves you.”

Like a fucking baby, I laid on my father’s chest while he held me with his free arm. “I’m sorry, Pops.”

“Stop being fucking hardheaded. Rory deserves the best from both of you… if you love Aim, then let her go. Allow her to come into her own, and if shit is meant for you both to end up together, then it will happen.”

“Judging from this nigga’s belt being undone, look like he came from her room.” Capone popped another piece of cookie into his mouth.

“Aye, you chill on those…I don’t got the strength to be fucking chasing you down because dolphins are chasing you.”

It was like it registered to Capone that he was eating those cookies like they were normal. “Fucking Gams keep getting me with these shits.”

“Shante is Quasim’s peoples, so out of respect I wanna see how he wanna handle it.”

I nodded my head, not moving from him, as I closed my eyes, forgetting I told Aimee to wait up for me.